Collector’s Log: Reorganization

Getting an SNES back in May was the last piece of my new retro collecting roadmap. It also created a bit of an organizational snag.

My Retro Room has five shelving units. Two of them house my original PlayStation library (which is over 1,100 discs!). One is for my original Xbox non-sports games. The other two were designated for NES, SNES, and Genesis. There’s one more shelving unit that, at some point, I hope to have assembled and put up. That will ideally be for N64 games, with some room for games from another console (I’m thinking SNES)… but that’s down the line.

The original PlayStation shelves are pretty packed and there’s very little space for adding anything right now. My collecting journey for that console has been winding down this year. I’m not completely done adding games, but the remaining ones I’m looking out for are pricey and not commonly found in the wild. These shelves also house some N64 games– my complete-in-box ones and some of the bins that house my loose ones. When the new shelving unit gets assembled, those will move and I’ll be able to space things out a bit more. I may move my demo discs over there at that point.

At over 225 carts, the NES collection takes up four shelves. It’s really 3.5 shelves plus a half-shelf for the 12 complete-in-box games I have. I need to keep some space for additions, so each shelf isn’t stacked to the maximum. I have room for another 25-30 carts. I’m not sure how quickly I’ll be filling those spaces, as a lot of the more affordable games on my want list have been picked up already… so I’m deal-hunting for NES these days, rather than more consistently adding games. If/when the new shelving unit is built, I could see potentially expanding to a full shelving unit (five shelves), perhaps adding a few more complete-in-box games.

65 of the 95 Genesis games I have are complete-in-case, so that takes up space. That means four shelves are dedicated to Genesis… for now. This is the platform that probably winds up getting consolidated a bit by putting the boxes into storage and instead stacking the carts on shelves to create more room. I can see maybe two shelves for Genesis if this happens, as I will want to keep some of my complete-in-case games as is. Genesis is primarily a sports video game console for me, though there’s a few other games I either have already picked up or have my eyes set on down the road. I’m not at all done with adding games for it.

SNES is now at 90 games, with a few more on the way. It’s quickly become my main collecting focus, and the number of games has been quickly climbing. SNES games are on the remaining two shelves. After having three columns of games on each shelf to start, the increasing number of games meant expanding to four columns instead– and relocating the Nintendo Power issues (and the SNES book) elsewhere. I did take the complete-in-box carts out of the boxes and placed the boxes along the top of the shelves for appearance’s sake. SNES will likely continue to be the collecting focus leading up to and into RetroWorld Expo, though I’ll be on the lookout for NES, Genesis, N64, and original PlayStation games, too.

As for the SNES-era Nintendo Power magazines and the SNES book, those moved to a bookshelf just outside of the Retro Room, where my strategy guides are currently housed. I did some reorganizing there, as well, moving the original PlayStation guides to the top of the shelf and creating room for the Nintendo Power issues. While I liked having all of the magazines in the Retro Room, space is a valuable resource… and the guide/magazine shelf is just outside the door. I can retrieve any guide or magazine I want pretty easily.

Collecting has been all but paused for original XBox, which is fine given that library has over 370 games in it. I relocated the subset of Xbox sports games to some shelves in a different, adjacent room, using small bins to stand the games up in groups of 12. I intend to do this with PS2 games, as well, over the summer, as they’re in much larger tubs currently. My higher value PS2 games are in a plastic drawer unit in the Retro Room, as well as in some bins in the closet space. Even with my purging of many unplayed PS2 games, there’s more than 700 games to organize. Gamecube and Wii are smaller, and Wii has its own drawer for the more frequently-played games I own.

Obviously, reorganization is a big part of maintaining a video game collection. It can be time-consuming, expensive, and maybe even stressful at times… but I enjoy it, and the end result is a collection that’s organized and easy to access.